Have you wondered how information from physical devices in the real world gets communicated to Smartphone processors? Do you want to make informed design decisions about sampling frequencies and bit-width requirements for various kinds of sensors? Do you want to gain expertise to affect the real world with actuators such as stepper motors, LEDs and generate notifications?
In this course, you will learn to interface common sensors and actuators to the DragonBoard™ 410c hardware. You will then develop software to acquire sensory data, process the data and actuate stepper motors, LEDs, etc. for use in mobile-enabled products. Along the way, you’ll learn to apply both analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion concepts.
Learning Goals: After completing this course, you will be able to:
1. Estimate sampling frequency and bit-width required for different sensors.
2. Program GPIOs (general purpose input/output pins) to enable communication between the DragonBoard 410c and common sensors.
3. Write data acquisition code for sensors such as passive and active infrared (IR) sensors, microphones, cameras, GPS, accelerometers, ultrasonic sensors, etc.
4. Write applications that process sensor data and take specific actions, such as stepper motors, LED matrices for digital signage and gaming, etc.

From the lesson

Amplifier Build

Time to build your very own amplifier! In order to interact with a wide variety of components, including many of the components that will be used throughout this course the voltage output from the DragonBoard™ 410c low speed expansion header will need to be amplified. In this lesson we will talk about a very basic voltage amplifier design. This design will be used to boost the signal voltage from the GPIO’s located on the DragonBoard™ 410c low speed expansion header. Once familiar with this basic amplifier, one can make adjustments to create personalized amplifiers geared toward specific future projects.